


Breaking The Trap

by likehandlingroses



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:46:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26959024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likehandlingroses/pseuds/likehandlingroses
Summary: Tom will tell anyone who'll listen that Thomas Barrow is just about the most disagreeable, condescending, unpleasant person he's ever met.He's not as sure who to tell when he changes his mind.
Relationships: Thomas Barrow/Tom Branson
Comments: 60
Kudos: 131





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title is inspired by Bruce Springsteen's, "Born to Run"
> 
> "Together we could break this trap / we'll run 'til we drop, baby we'll never go back"

**Boston - 1934**

The door creaked on its hinges as it swung out (something that would be fixed in short order, if only they could decide on who, exactly, would do the fixing). Sybbie pulled it shut again, harder than necessary. 

She could be stubborn too: they forgot that...though she wished she’d bothered with a coat in this particular circumstance before deciding on stubbornness. The winds were picking up, chilled by their recent journey over the water. Somewhere further inland, they must turn warm again, or else disappear entirely. 

Though she shivered all the way down to her toes while hastening to the end of the street, Sybbie couldn’t really bring herself to wish for either alternative...there was excitement in the bracing winds, a sensibility she was used to by now. 

On the whole, Sybbie preferred what she was used to, which was exactly what her father didn’t understand…he could call it an adventure all he liked, but she’d been on the same one before and found nothing there worth seeing. 

She reached the park—and her favorite tree—without remembering anything of the journey...as if a part of her had wanted to be well and truly lost. Then she couldn’t come back, which meant she wouldn’t be forced to endure more letters from people she hardly knew who wanted to snatch her up. 

_They only want to_ _see_ _you,_ he’d laughed, as if that weren’t exactly the problem. They only wanted to see _her_ —or whoever they thought her to be—and it was those terms that stung in a way the wind never could. 

She thought of climbing the tree—even though it was too cold, and some people thought she was getting too old for it anyway—but a glance over her shoulder before hauling herself up revealed she’d been caught. 

Thomas had brought her coat. 

“I told him you wouldn’t want it,” his eyes flickered with amusement as her pink fingers fumbled with the sleeves, “but he said you’d freeze without it, so there you are.” 

“He should have brought it himself, then,” she grumbled, though she was grateful for it, and for the gloves tucked into the right-hand pocket. 

“He does it for you.” 

And they weren’t talking about the coat anymore. 

“He doesn’t do it for me, when I’m the one asking not to go!”

Thomas’s hat was pulled low, but she could see he hadn’t come to be an ally. Not when it came to this. 

“They only want to see you—” 

“—well, I _ don’t  _ want to see them—”

“—maybe not now, but you might later.” Before Sybbie could protest that there was a pretty simple solution to such a possibility, he added (in a dead sort of tone): “It might be that they can help you.”

An idea that clearly insulted him, as it should. As it would her father, if he ever came back to his senses and found his pride. 

She’d have to be proud for him until then. 

“I don’t need their help.”

“I agree with you, as it happens. But he’s not so sure.” He sighed before squinting down at the grass. “He never has been.”

It didn’t make any sense at all—what was left to be sure about? And was it worth spoiling Christmas to find the answers, when they’d gone so long without them already? When the last visit hadn’t solved them, or the one before that...

“But you’re sure, aren’t you?” Sybbie clung to his sleeve at the slightest shift in his gaze. “Then tell him. Tell him, please!”

It was for his sake as much as anyone, though Sybbie didn’t know how to talk about that part just yet. But Thomas wouldn’t stay at Downton Abbey, that much had always been clear. 

She was getting much too old for a great many things (as she was so often being told), and Sybbie knew that swallowing such terms was one of them. 

“What, again?” Thomas laughed. 

But he did try again, and Sybbie listened at the door, standing on tiptoes (a habit she’d picked up when she was young and never set to one side). 

“They’ve had you feeling guilty for fourteen years—” 

“—I don’t feel  _ guilty—” _

“—over something that wasn’t your fault.”

“I don’t think that’s fair.” 

“They might not mean it, but it’s true. I think after so many years, I’ve earned the right to say so.”

For a brief moment of silence, Sybbie wondered if her stubbornness was worth it...there were things she didn’t remember, things that might explain her father’s willingness to come at their call. Thomas said he did it for her, but nothing was ever as simple as people pretended. 

The amusement in his voice calmed her nerves: 

“That’s your foot down, then.”

“And hers,” Thomas said. “She’s already told you she doesn’t want to go.”

“And you’d give her anything if she asked it.” (Sybbie grinned from the other side of the door). 

“Suppose I would?” 

“But there’s no reason in that.”

“She has reasons. Ask her. Or are you afraid she might convince you after all?”

That hadn’t worked so well the first time, though Sybbie had promised Thomas not to argue if given the chance—only explain (she just hoped she could manage to keep such a promise). 

But once her father sighed, she knew she wouldn’t have to find out. 

“What’ll I tell them?” he implored Thomas, the last gasp of protest in his voice. 

She could hear Thomas’s smile. “That you won’t come.”

That seemed as good a time as any to open the spare room’s door, which she did after hardly so much as a cursory knock. 

“I just wanted to know when I’ll need to be packed,” she said, stepping through the doorway with a defiance she was pretty sure she didn’t need anymore, but had built up a nice stock of in any case. “If I’m being forced to go.”

Dad looked over at Thomas with a raised brow—her timing had been too convenient—though after so many years he didn’t need to say where she’d picked up the habit from. 

“You aren’t being forced. If you’d really rather stay here?”

_ “Yes, _ I would really rather stay here, haven’t I been saying so all this time?” She caught Thomas’s eye and remembered her promise. “I mean, yes I would  _ please.” _

Stubborn or not, each of them _ did _ move from time to time—in rhythm and at their own pace. 

“Anyway,” Sybbie explained to Thomas as he fiddled with the front door a few hours later, “they might be my family, but they aren’t _ our _ sort of people.” 


	2. Chapter 2

**1913**

“He’s no economist,” Thomas said, hardly glancing up from his paper. “Keir Hardie, I mean.”

_ No economist _ —as if he was making a serious study of economics in between dinner parties and smoking breaks. Thomas was parroting something he’d read halfway through, which seemed to be the usual way with him. He thought people didn’t notice, but Tom had: Thomas liked to have his nose in the paper (liked the look of it, probably)...but he was always dropping it to slink away with Miss O’Brien. 

Whether it was a waste or not remained to be seen. 

In either case, Tom was too eager to avoid taking the bait. 

“People always get caught up in the numbers,” he said, leaning forward. “But what does it matter if we have to fix a budget once or twice, if it means giving people their rights? Surely that’s more important?”

“Do you like being paid, Mr. Branson?”

“It’s my right to be, for a day’s work,” Tom said, almost on top of his question. 

Thomas’s lip curled as he lifted his cup. “So it’s your right to be paid, but money isn’t very important?”

“That’s not what I said,” Tom protested. Not what he’d meant, anyway, what he’d meant to say was that, “people have the right to earn something for themselves, not just for the people who hoard more than they could ever spend—more than they could ever earn—already. You want to talk of wasting money, you should start there.”

He looked from Thomas—who hadn’t stopped smirking—to Anna, who was sitting in the corner with her stitching, acting like she couldn’t hear. 

“I’m not saying it doesn’t matter that we get it right,” Tom continued, “but why are new mistakes worse than the old ones? Are you saying you’d rather we go on like this?”

“Would I  _ rather _ have it go on like this?” Thomas leaned back in his chair. “No, I’d say I’d  _ rather  _ have everything I liked and nothing I didn’t. But if you told me I’d have to start burning things down for it to happen, I might not want to take the risk. And I’d wager Mr. Carson’ll feel the same, if he catches you reading that.”

The reply contained more sarcasm and veiled threats than Tom might have liked, but at least they were getting to something worth talking about. 

“But they’re the ones burning it all down for a fairy story, don’t you see that? It wasn’t always like this, most of it’s only started in the last century or two...your father made clocks, didn’t he?”

Thomas blinked, his smile disappearing.

“Who told you that?”

Tom couldn’t remember, really, but it didn’t matter anyway. Not when he’d found a nail waiting to be hammered in. 

“That’s a real skill, that’s real work,” he said. “But people can’t make careers of that, now. Now they want to manufacture everything so they get some of the profits, no matter what’s being made. So they get most of the money when they’ve got none of the skill.”

Thomas scowled at the kettle to his left. 

“I know that,” he said, voice low. 

“People weren’t meant to work in factories, putting one part onto another all day.” Tom felt he might be getting somewhere. “We were meant to  _ create _ something, to build our own lives for ourselves and for our families. Not for some businessman or lord who’s never made anything in his life. Doesn’t it bother you?”

Thomas’s face—so encouragingly pensive only a moment before—was back to something proud and unpleasant. 

“No, I quite enjoy things as they are,” he said slowly, irony unmistakable. “Or I did, until you started explaining the world to me...you see, I don’t get out much, and I suppose I never thought about it all before. It’s lucky you’re so clever.” 

The bitterness in his voice bled through, and Tom had his answer. 

He didn’t know what to do with it. Bitterness was a tricky thing—it seemed helpful on the surface, but it never did anything but get in the way. Bitterness was lazy, disinclined to move a finger to help itself or anyone else...what could Tom hope to do with that?

His eyes followed Thomas out of the servants’ hall—he might have been wrong, bringing up his father...though what was the point in being embarrassed about the truth? That’s what they wanted, for everyone to take it as a personal failure and never talk about anything important…

“Leave him be.” Anna had stopped with her stitching—Tom wondered how long ago she’d abandoned it. “He likes to argue for the sake of it. Though he’s right about Mr. Carson—I’d keep the reading to your cottage.”

Tom leaned in her direction, shaking off the sense of failure that hung about his shoulders. “But you understand what I’m saying?”

Anna sighed. “Of course I do. But Mr. Branson, you won’t get anywhere by acting like the rest of us live in caves.” 

Tom didn’t exactly know what to say to that—he hadn’t meant it that way at all. The trouble was, most truths were pretty simple once you laid them out. It wasn’t his fault that people got too proud to admit that they’d let themselves forget a few things from time to time. 

Anna smiled to herself in his silence, shaking her head. “There: that’s twice you’ve had me taking Thomas’s side. I’m taking this upstairs before it happens again.” 

Perhaps there _ were  _ better ways of explaining himself...or perhaps there were better people to try and explain things to than Thomas.  _ He _ didn’t have any right to balk at condescension, when he’d been the one who started it...and for what? To embarrass Tom over reading a book? 

It might do Thomas some good, being embarrassed himself. 

“He could do with taking his own advice, then,” Tom said, turning to Anna. 

She grinned. “That’s not one of his strong points.” 

Before Tom could inquire as to what his strong points exactly  _ were _ , she’d slipped out of the servants’ hall, soon to be replaced by a Mr. Carson who—as predicted—found nothing kind to say about Tom’s reading material except that he hoped there was light enough in Tom’s cottage for him to read it at his leisure  _ elsewhere.  _

* * *

Thomas and Miss O’Brien were probably lurking about the garage on purpose—Tom was beginning to get a handle on the running of the house by now, and when Miss O’Brien was involved, things were always on purpose. Never more so than when Thomas joined her. 

“Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t see the point,” she said with a carrying sigh. 

Tom, who had initially determined not to say anything at all, was persuaded: 

“But why shouldn’t she be interested?” he said, inviting two imperious stares at once. 

“What’s it to you whether she is or not?” Miss O’Brien said, a bite in her voice. She seemed to be taking the whole thing personally, though Tom didn’t see why. Her Ladyship might not interest herself with politics, but she didn’t seem the sort to be bothered over her daughter reading a few pamphlets.

“Because it says something, doesn’t it?” Tom said. “A lord’s daughter, taking an interest in politics—”

“—and how’s that different from a lord’s son taking an interest?” Thomas interjected. 

Thomas’s tone carried none of the investment Miss O’Brien’s did. What did he care what Lady Sybil did with her time? Nothing at all; he only wanted to annoy Tom. 

It wasn’t going to work, Tom decided. 

“Maybe nothing,” he admitted. “But it’s not all about class, you know. It’s about a system. And women haven’t had their say in it yet.” 

Thomas blew out a truly impressive amount of smoke while exchanging an amused look with Miss O’Brien. 

“Women?” He tapped the ash off the end of his cigarette. “Lady Sybil hasn’t even made it to a London Season yet.”

Tom blinked. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Thomas shrugged. “I’d wait and see before deciding whose side she’s on.”

“You think so little of her?” Tom said without thinking. Both Thomas and O’Brien’s eyes widened—probably from seeing something that Tom really would rather have kept to himself. 

Still, what could they do about it? Nothing had happened...nothing  _ would  _ happen, in all likelihood. He liked Lady Sybil very much—more than he’d ever expected to take an interest in anyone—but he’d have to be sure before even considering speaking a word to her about it.

He was a long way from sure, which made the present moment all the more unsettling. 

“Hark at him…” Thomas said, in a tone that made Tom’s stomach turn. “A Socialist who thinks all the prettiest ladies deserve a pat on the back for supporting the Liberal candidate, now  _ there’s _ one I haven’t heard before—”

“—you don’t know anything at all about having principles, that’s why you laugh at them,” Tom retorted, his resolve slipping away entirely (and could he help it if Thomas had made it his life’s mission to poke and prod at everyone around him? Was it  _ Tom’s _ responsibility to be the bigger person, to pretend he didn’t deserve a bite back once in a while?)

Thomas didn’t look as though he’d felt anything at all. 

“I thought I was laughing at  _ you,  _ Mr. Branson.”

* * *

Tom almost hadn’t bothered to come—whatever the rest of them said, he couldn’t see the point in playing at their game for an evening. The servants’ ball was just another distraction, a way for the upper class to show their power. They chose the date and time, the manner and decor, for how their servants could celebrate.

It seemed all wrong to Tom, though he was humbled by Anna assuring him that a handful of staff begged to be left out of it each year.

“Not everyone likes that sort of thing,” she said, in a tone that provoked him.

He was far too old to take it to heart anymore, but there were some moments where Tom still worried over things said to him in childhood. His mother had been the worst offender, often remarking that he was “away somewhere else, and God knows when he’ll decide to come back.”

She had always seemed to think it was funny, but to an eight year old boy who’d gone no further than his favorite tree on his grandfather’s farm, it settled somewhere far less amusing. 

So he’d gone, in protest of his own anxieties, and much good it had done him. He felt stared at and out of place, and he couldn’t just blame the room and the Crawleys. Not when everyone else seemed to accept both just fine. 

For God’s sake, even Thomas took to the setting better than he did—and Thomas was just about the least sociable person Tom had ever met. 

You wouldn’t know it, watching him flirt with each of the Crawley sisters in turn. He was a Prince Charming, for all they knew. Out of his livery and seeming all the more interesting for it...too interesting, in fact. Servants’ ball or not, surely he was taking some liberties. 

“Doesn’t it bother His Lordship?” Tom grumbled to Mrs. Patmore. 

“Oh, I shouldn’t think so,” she said, in a way that made Tom feel laughed at, somehow. 

“Because we’re the help and have too much to lose...perhaps he thinks we don’t have any feelings at all.”

She sighed. 

“If you’d look up from those papers every once in a while…” 

Tom caught her eye, then followed it to Thomas, who had found himself at the same tray as Mr. Matthew. Though Thomas’s smile hadn’t faded, it didn’t look quite as self-satisfied as before...almost like he’d forgotten to mind it for a few minutes, leaving it to its own devices. 

It was far nicer that way, Tom thought, before remembering that he was probably supposed to be looking at something other than Thomas’s smile...he turned back to Mrs. Patmore for a clue as to what, but she’d disappeared. 

_ No matter, _ Tom thought as he watched Thomas laugh—really laugh, that was something new—at something Mr. Matthew had said. 

He was getting an idea of it for himself.


	3. Chapter 3

**1917**

“—and being taken care of by  _ Thomas  _ of all people—”

“—he won’t like you calling him that,” Lady Sybil laughed. It was a testament to her character that Tom’s confession of love hadn’t changed everything between them...Tom hoped it would prove to be a testament to something else in time, but he was willing to wait, if that's what she needed. 

“I’ll bet he won’t.” Though Tom wasn’t going to lose any sleep over possibly offending ‘Corporal Barrow.’ 

“He isn’t causing any trouble?” he asked, glancing back at Lady Sybil—Nurse Crawley, now. 

She shook her head. “None at all. Why should he?”

“Why?” Tom laughed. “Because that’s what he does.”

Or he  _ had, _ anyway, in the years before the war...Tom still wasn’t sure whether to consider it a long time passed or not. So much had happened to the world, and nothing at all to him. (Even Thomas at least  _ looked _ older, which had annoyed Tom more than was reasonable…)

Sybil sat back in her seat, arching her brow. 

“I should think you’d get on better if that were true,” she remarked, before looking out the window with a grin. 

* * *

Tom hadn’t missed anything about Thomas, but he’d missed his loitering about the yard least of all. He seemed to always come when he was the least welcome, striding around the corner as if in perfect knowledge of the fact. 

Tom wasn’t in any mood to see anyone—he’d overplayed his hand, said too much and far too quickly. Sybil hadn’t been impressed with him for some time, and he’d known it...and rather than doing anything to change the reasons why, he’d started talking more foolishly than ever before. 

The fact was,  _ Sybil  _ wasn’t the one without any real purpose at the moment. It was him, and they both knew it. 

“Can’t you do that anywhere else?” Tom said, setting his rag down in frustration—Thomas had planted himself just in Tom’s periphery for the past five minutes, teasing a cigarette in one hand as he pretended to look over a letter in the other. 

Speaking to him had been a mistake, and also exactly what Thomas appeared to have wanted. 

“Don’t be sour with me, just because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut,” he gloated. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Tom asked, wishing he didn’t have any suspicions. Though why Sybil would tell _ Thomas Barrow  _ anything at all...it was enough to make Tom sorrier than he already was—much sorrier. 

“She told me what you said—Nurse Crawley,” Thomas confirmed his fears with such delight that Tom wondered whether either himself or Lady Sybil might be misremembering what had really happened. He’d been bullheaded and a bit of a hypocrite, but nothing more than that. 

“You touched a nerve, and no mistake…” Thomas continued. “And here I thought you had such a high opinion of her—”

“—I do,” Tom interrupted, not about to let Thomas preach to him on anything at all, let alone the subject at hand. “Very much. And if I made it seem like I don’t, then I’m sorry for it. I only meant that there are better places for her talents.”

Thomas—still grinning—took a long drag of his cigarette before answering. 

“As if you’d know anything about it…” he said, each of the words falling so precisely that Tom wondered if he’d planned them out in advance, if he’d managed to predict Tom’s defense...and the words kept coming: 

“The most you have to do with the hospital is driving past it for fittings. She works harder than you, I’ll wager.”

It stung, more than Tom wanted to admit to. 

_ That’s because it’s true.  _

After everything he’d prepared himself for, was it all going to happen without him?

“And what about you?” Tom scanned Thomas’s figure—smoking at his leisure, just like always. Time and a uniform hadn’t changed much of anything. “Do you work pretty hard, Sergeant?”

“I’m entitled to a break, same as you.” Thomas didn’t miss a beat. “Anyway,  _ I’m  _ not the one who said she’s only good for carrying water cups and batting her eyes.”

He had the upper hand and knew it; he’d have no pity when using it, either...Tom didn’t understand what had possessed Sybil to give over such control to one of the last people in the house who deserved it (but she hadn’t told him _ everything, _ Tom guessed...Thomas would have let it slip by now if she had). 

Irritated and sorry he’d started it up in the first place, Tom spoke without much hope of doing anything but speeding up Thomas’s departure: 

“Perhaps I had her mixed up with you.”

The words came out sharpened with a meaning he hadn’t really intended; Tom only recognized it in the silence that followed. Thomas’s eyes had flitted to the garage frame in front of him, his mouth tight as his cigarette burned away at his side—held at attention yet clearly forgotten for the time being. For the first time, Thomas had really  _ felt  _ something he’d said. 

Tom wished to God it hadn’t been that. 

Finally, Thomas dropped his cigarette onto the ground, putting it out with the toe of his boot. 

“Enjoy it,” he murmured, looking back at Tom—his voice was too cold to sound really disinterested, but it did its job of pushing Tom back. 

“Enjoy what?” 

“Being right all the time.” Thomas lifted his chin. “You looked so unhappy; I thought I should remind you.” 

He walked away, leaving Tom with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. 

It was the first time he’d felt something _ Thomas _ had said, either...though Tom tried to ease the blow by assuring himself that he would apologize to Lady Sybil as soon as he saw her—the concert at the latest, but sooner if he could manage. 

Perhaps she could tell Thomas _ that _ story next...Tom didn’t doubt it was a moral Thomas could do with learning. 

Even still, he went back to work wishing he hadn’t said anything at all.

* * *

Tom was surprised to see Thomas back to hanging around the yard—he’d made himself scarce ever since their last disagreement (which Tom remained sorry for, though not to the point of searching the Abbey in order to make an apology—Thomas had started it, after all...or just about...Tom couldn’t really remember...but he’d never _ enjoyed _ causing an argument the way Thomas did, and that had to count for something). 

At any rate, whose fault it was had fallen off his list of concerns. William was dead, and it served as a reminder that the world outside of Downton was willing to pull them into its current, for good or for ill. 

Thomas looked to have taken it to heart. He’d been more somber than Tom had ever seen him, and he and Miss O’Brien were no longer attached at the hip. If Old Lady Grantham was right and not just presumptuous, he’d been all too eager to help William come to Downton. 

It was no more than what Tom would have done, if he’d been asked. It _ did  _ seem much more than what he’d assumed Thomas would do, given the chance. 

Lady Edith had said something about how sad it all was, seeing their two footmen together again, “almost for the last time, really.” She hadn’t caught his meaning when he asked if “he’d really been to see him, m’lady?” but Sybil had. 

“Of course he has,” a quiet reprimand in her voice. “Why shouldn’t he?”

Tom found that any answer he had wasn’t very good—they were all out of date, or not so compelling as he’d once assumed. 

He didn’t really know much about Thomas Barrow at all. 

“I thought it was a fine service,” Tom called out from over the motor. Thomas hardly looked up. 

“Aren’t they always?”

“Not always, no,” Tom smiled, though Thomas wasn’t in any position to see it. “My uncle’s went so badly that it took until Christmas for my cousins to all start talking to each other again.”

Thomas didn’t answer—he was going to make Tom do it properly, then...Tom stepped out from under the awning, glancing once in either direction. 

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” (he was already starting out with a half-truth, but Tom couldn’t think of a better way to begin). “The last time we spoke...I shouldn’t have said what I did. That is...I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Thomas had glanced only briefly at Tom before looking back at the pavement, lips pursed together in furious embarrassment. 

“Mean anything by what?” 

It was an answer Tom couldn’t blame him for—and anyway, the details didn’t matter as much as the principle of the thing. 

“All I mean is, I don’t want to fight with you,” Tom said. “Lady Sybil—Nurse Crawley, I know, you don’t have to say it—what I mean is, she thinks well of you, and she’d know better than me.”

Thomas looked at him again, flattered by the recommendation...more than flattered, Tom thought. He was pleased (and maybe more than a little surprised). 

“Well,” he said, and there was something almost charming in his failed attempt at masking his delight at the compliment. “We all know how you think so  _ much  _ of her…”

“You can laugh,” Tom said, though truthfully he was glad to remember a time when one of his largest concerns was if Thomas Barrow might discover he had eyes for Lady Sybil. “But I do—I think she’s a fine person.” 

“I won’t laugh about that,” Thomas said fairly. “She _ is  _ a fine person.”

And just like that, they’d decided on having something in common. It made a great deal of difference; as he got older,Tom was finding more and more that in between  _ nothing _ and  _ something _ lay a wide chasm...not difficult to cross, but daunting to look out upon. But once you were on the other side, it seemed nothing at all. 

Still, they weren’t exactly friends.

“I should get back to…” Tom pointed back at the car, a farewell starting in his throat when Thomas asked:

“What does it need all day? The car, I mean?”

Tom blinked; Thomas seemed sincere in asking the question, though Tom couldn’t imagine why he’d asked it. 

“Well, that depends,” he said with a shrug. 

“On what?”

“How much do you know about cars?”

Tom was half-afraid of offending him by the question, of setting off a temper he remembered as being particularly short...but Thomas only smiled. 

“Nothing at all,” he said, lifting his chin. “I suppose you’ll tell me it’s just a bit of this and that, then?”

He was humoring Tom, and looking like he enjoyed it quite a bit. It was bewildering, but Tom couldn’t say he disliked it...and he certainly liked it better than what they’d been doing before. 

“I could show you, if you’d like,” he offered, knowing a challenge when he’d heard one. “It doesn’t take much, to get an idea of how it all works.”

“No, most things don’t,” Thomas agreed, before being called away by one of the nurses who happened to pass by. 

Tom waited expectantly for about three weeks before deciding Thomas wasn’t likely to ask again. 

He surprised himself by being disappointed. 


	4. 1920

Feb 18, 1920

Dear Thomas,

I was so pleased when Tom read your name over breakfast!

I know you must be very busy. It’s good of you to write at all, and I hope you never feel embarrassed about doing so, no matter how long you’ve left it. I will always be very glad to receive a note from you, as I was this time.

I’m quite sick of news ever since the War, so I’m not sorry to hear that Downton isn’t as exciting as it was before. I hope it isn’t too dull for you. Do you remember what I said before leaving? I mean it still. Tell me if you have any ideas, because I mean to be very insistent, once you’re ready. I’m practiced and proven, now!

I am so very pleased about the baby, and so is Tom. Thank you for saying what you did. I can only hope it’s true. 

I don’t think we will come for the wedding, though it breaks my heart. Tom says we might afford it if I go without him, but I think it would send the wrong message. Especially to Tom. He thinks he can put that whole side of things out of his mind, but it was my home and they are my family. You’ll be the one to correct me if I’m off the mark, but I don’t think they’re terribly harsh people, (even if they are very, very different from the people one gets to know here!) I think Tom could find a new family with them, as I’ve found a new family with his. 

So although I miss them, and although I love Mary and Matthew terribly, I think it would be a mistake to give Tom any idea that I’d rather go alone. I will be sorry not to see you, but you must write to me afterwards and tell me how everything goes. 

I hope you don’t find this letter too glum; I’m used to airing my troubles with you, but of course it’s terribly unfair in a letter. You do a much better job of writing them, but that isn’t a surprise. 

I really am very happy, even with my troubles. I feel as if I’m living real life, with real problems and real things to look forward to. 

One of those things will always be another letter from an old friend, and I hope you won’t forget it. 

Love from,

Sybil Branson 

* * *

It was just for the wedding, Sybil said...but of course that would never be true, anymore. Tom yearned for only a few weeks ago, back when he’d guessed that Lord Grantham and the rest of them would abandon Sybil—if not as a daughter—then as a project. He and Sybil could live their life in peace, on their own terms, and the rest of them could have Downton Abbey and all that came with it. 

But they’d taken the money, taken the trip, and now forever and ever they’d be asked why not _this_ time, why not _this_ custom, why not _this_ concession, _this_ surrender for the greater good? 

It felt silly, arguing over a coat. Perhaps it was—but if it got much further, it wouldn’t be silly anymore. If it got much further, Tom would have to put his foot down, whether Sybil liked it or not. 

They were one person, now, and it was uncomfortable from time to time. He’d take on the burden for the wedding, so Sybil could see her sister happy, so Matthew wouldn’t be embarrassed over his kindness towards Tom...but the next time, he’d have his say.

His resolution to play nice came before Thomas poked his head into the room, interrupting Sybil’s musings about how the flowers were exactly like how Mary had always said she wanted them (“she’s the romantic one, you know, much more than she lets on”). 

“Beg pardon, m’lady....” Thomas’s surprise at finding Sybil in the room seemed genuine—probably something else they were doing wrong somehow. “I came to check on Mr. Branson.” 

Tom was still too uncomfortable about the shoulders to wonder what he meant by it. 

“Mr. Molesley’s shown me how to manage everything, thank you,” he said, more shortly than Thomas deserved. 

He paid for it in a cool pout that told Tom he’d be sorry before long. 

“Of course.” Thomas lifted his chin. “But Mr. Carson asked me to look in. As Alfred’s quite busy.” 

From what he’d been told, Carson couldn’t have been more frantic about the wedding than if it had been his own daughter’s. And Tom didn’t _need_ to be told that Carson still hadn’t forgiven him for taking Sybil away. He’d be punished forever for it, in little ways. Sending Thomas up was just one of them. 

It only helped a little that Thomas looked as if he were being punished just as much. 

“Like I said, I think I can manage it all myself—”

“—Tom,” Sybil interrupted in a low voice—Tom just caught the way she met eyes with Thomas. “If he’s been asked.”

Thomas didn’t appear to appreciate the reminder any more than Tom did. 

“If you’re busy—” he said, going even more rigid in the shoulders than usual. 

“—no, he isn’t busy,” Sybil said, with a smile that seemed to relax Thomas but did nothing at all for Tom, particularly when Thomas stepped closer to inspect his costume. 

“You’re in livery again for today?” Sybil said, ignoring the discomfort in front of her, in the way only posh people really could. Even Thomas was bristling at Tom’s constant fidgeting, at the proof that he wasn’t a proper gentleman and had no business being serviced by a valet. 

“I am, just for the wedding. Mr. Carson wanted everything done properly, and as there’s only one footman...” 

_Poor Alfred._

“Of course he did,” Sybil and Tom said as one, with quite different meanings. 

Tom let out a frustrated sigh. 

“Isn’t any of it right, then?” he asked, avoiding looking at anything as Thomas undid his handiwork. 

“Not exactly, Mr. Branson,” Thomas said lightly. “Alfred was eager to help, but as I’ve said, with only one footman we really can’t let him practice today. Much as he might want to.”

From what Tom could tell, Thomas was appeasing himself about his recent assignment by deciding that he was, at least, _not_ Alfred the Only Footman, whose only chance at valeting was with the former chauffeur. 

“Is he very eager?” Sybil asked, as Tom shrugged off another invisible touch. 

“He is, m’lady. And he’s Miss O’Brien’s nephew, so she’s been quite insistent about the particulars.”

“And that’s not like her at all,” Sybil laughed. The glint in Thomas’s eyes might not have been half-unpleasant, downstairs or out in the yard or anywhere else but right in Tom’s face while he did up his buttons for him—

“—is that it, then?” Tom said the instant Thomas pulled back to survey his work. 

Thomas’s lip curled—he’d found another bright side in irritating Tom. 

“Almost,” he murmured, straightening Tom’s collar before finally stepping back properly with an incline of his head that managed somehow to be impertinent. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be needed downstairs—”

“—of course,” Tom interrupted, before tacking on a hasty: “Thank you, Thomas.”

That had been the wrong thing to say as well, though it took Sybil’s correction for Tom to realize why Thomas’s eyes had narrowed: 

“It’s Barrow, now that he’s a valet,” she said, looking at Thomas as if to appease him. 

“Is it?” Tom said, distracted by how self-satisfied Thomas’s grin had turned—he was smug as ever, then, and still about the silliest things in the world. Perhaps the war hadn’t stuck as powerfully as Tom had once wished. 

He nearly said so to Sybil as the door closed, but she spoke first: 

“Couldn’t you do without shooting daggers at him?” 

Tom fiddled with his sleeves—whatever they said, it didn’t fit right.

“I’m not a puppet,” he sniped, “I’m not a decoration—”

“—well, it isn’t Thomas’s fault that Granny put her foot down” (And of course _she_ could use his Christian name, they were friends—something Tom had tried and failed to understand). 

“It’s his fault for enjoying it,” he protested. “And you encouraged him—”

“—I didn’t—”

“—you always did,” Tom said, before he had time to realize what he meant by it. A silence fell over the room. Tom took a breath, feeling like a child under Sybil’s perplexed stare.

“I suppose I can choose my own friends, even if you don’t like them.” 

“No, I don’t like him.” 

What he’d meant as resolve came out as bitterness. Jealousy, even, though of course that was ridiculous for any number of reasons...he looked away from Sybil. 

“And neither does anyone else, for that matter,” he finished, feeling guilty before he’d finished the sentence. Of all the days to start a fight...and Thomas hadn’t done anything, really, except be himself when it was inconvenient...

“That’s not true, Tom,” Sybil said, with more sincerity than the claim had deserved. Tom’s eyes caught the mirror, and he looked away sharply. And he’d been giving advice about marriage and mending fences only hours before...he’d always been better about giving advice than taking it. 

A terrible thought crossed his mind: that while they were in Dublin, Sybil really felt as uncomfortable as he did now, only she was kind enough to hide it from him. 

Not that he hadn’t tried. He’d tried, more and more with each passing minute, to be both himself and her husband. He’d almost thought he was getting the hang of it with Matthew, the night before. 

But Matthew had no expectations, while Sybil had about a thousand. She wouldn’t have called them expectations—she’d have said hopes or dreams or beliefs about who he was—but of course they were all expectations when it came down to it. Expectations of him, like he had of her. 

The difference was, she was much better about meeting his. 

“You look very smart,” Sybil finally offered, which only made Tom feel worse. 

“Do I?” he tried to laugh about it. “I don’t feel like it.” 

She stood. Tom couldn’t tell if she was still angry with him, if she had managed to smooth things over in fact or only for the appearance of things. 

_Perhaps Thomas would know._ The glum thought made Tom wish more than ever that he’d put his foot down over the coat, over the money, over everything…

It had been a mistake to believe nothing would be asked of him in coming back. 

“I should go to Mary, before Edith says something she shouldn’t…” Sybil kissed his cheek. “Darling, don’t fuss with it, it’s all in place.”

Tom’s hand dropped, leaving his sleeve be for at least the next few seconds. 

“You’d know, wouldn’t you?” He smiled, but the joke only earned him a pitying look from Sybil. 

“We’ll be back home soon, and you can forget all about it.”

Though he longed to be back in Dublin, Tom didn’t see how he’d ever be allowed to forget Downton again. 

* * *

Waking up without her couldn’t have been something he was meant to bear. 

The thought consumed him during the service, dulling any radiance from the last time—the _very last time,_ he kept repeating, as if to shock himself into feeling anything but bitter—they’d all be gathered together because of her. 

The prayers echoed through the church, ringing in Tom’s ears like a series of lies no one could really believe. 

They all kept trying to tease him back into the world, but all Tom wanted to do was sit with his daughter and hope that someday it would make sense again. Like he could love her enough to bring meaning back into the world, back into his own spirit. 

Until then, there wasn’t much point in anything else. 

Tom heard talking coming from the nursery—Lady Grantham, perhaps, she was always eager to see little Sybil. She talked to her, too, in a way Tom hadn’t yet dared. It wasn’t that he didn’t see the sense in it—of course a baby had as much a right to words as any other person did—only he couldn’t think what to say to her. 

_I’m sorry_ was the only phrase that came to mind, and it felt like a wretched thing to say to an infant. 

But he didn’t find Lady Grantham in the nursery—it was Anna’s voice he’d heard, though she wasn’t talking to Sybil. 

Anna noticed Tom first; Thomas must have been too busy playing nanny to register her sudden silence. He had Sybil’s hand wrapped ‘round his index finger, smiling as if it were anything more than a reflex (maybe he didn’t know that—from what Tom could remember, he wasn’t overly sentimental about babies). 

“Mr. Branson,” Anna said, more as a hint to Thomas than a greeting. Tom, avoiding his gaze, only saw him look up from the corner of his eye. It wasn’t _Tom’s_ attention Thomas was after, anyway…

There was talk already that Mr. Bates might not be gone for much longer, which meant _Mr. Barrow_ would be looking for another job if he didn’t think on his feet.

That would explain it.

“Where’s the nurse?” Tom said, eyes firmly on Anna, who kept glancing at Thomas apologetically. 

“She went out; I told her I’d stay,” Anna explained. “And Mr. Barrow—”

“—must be very busy,” Tom said, unwilling to hear what story Thomas had told this time (and who must have played a major part in it). “I’ll take her.”

Anna was clever enough act as a go-between, handing Sybil off to Tom with a murmured, “of course, Mr. Branson,” before they both hastened out of the room. 

Tom could hear her talking to Thomas in a low voice, grasping only the words, “grieving, that’s all—” before willing himself not to hear any more. 

_That’s all._

Tom closed his eyes, letting Sybil grab at his finger and not caring if it were a reflex or not. 

* * *

“It was in the drawer by the nightstand. I thought you should have it.”

 _Why?_ Tom wanted to ask—he’d never dare to read it. Sybil had fiercely guarded her journal in life, and Tom had no desire to lie to himself and say she’d want for him to turn over the pages now. 

Edith would know better what to do with it than he would—both she and Mary had every right to take a look, as her sisters. She would understand them rifling through it all, finding the gossip within it in and arguing about it until they grew old. Perhaps it would bring them closer together, remembering her through her own words.

Tom would only feel more alone. 

Still, he cracked open the cover, tracing the way she’d written her initials inside of it. First with his eyes, then with his index finger. Determined not to read anything else, he still noticed how the first few pages floated above the rest, propped up by something stuck inside the diary. Tom tilted the book to one side until the loose pages fell towards him, leaving a letter to slide out from its hiding place. 

This, Tom had never promised not to read...though there was the matter of it _living_ in the diary...but it was just as likely Sybil had kept it as a marker, or left it there for safekeeping rather than privacy.

Tom unfolded it, vowing to look away at the first sign that Sybil would have wanted it kept private: 

Feb 8, 1920

Dear Lady Sybil,

I took too long in writing you back, and for that I am sorry. I didn’t know what to say for the longest time. There’s nothing much to report here, other than of course Mr. Bates’s trial, which you’ll have heard all about already and which, I’ve been warned, I am not impartial enough to discuss. 

The wedding is all that’s on anyone’s mind at the moment. No one is sure if you’ll be there or not, but we all are hoping very much to see you. All of us downstairs, anyway, I won’t speak for anyone else (that’s another thing I’ve been warned not to do). 

You have news, I’ve been told. The best kind for most people, and I hope it is for you. They will be the luckiest of children for having you as a mother. I do know that. 

I am sorry, again, for not writing to you before now. I suppose I was nervous. I don’t know why. We talked every day, during the war, but we had to then and we don’t have to now. 

Most people don’t, if they don’t have to. Especially with me, so I don’t expect this to be very different. But I am pleased to have had a letter from you, and if it is different, I will try and be quicker about returning the favor in the future. 

I hope very much that you are well, and I always will. 

Sincerely,

Thomas Barrow

  
  


Tom wanted nothing more than to sink into the floor. Secret or not, he wished he hadn’t read it...or he wished he’d read it before bullying Thomas out of the nursery, one of the two. 

The trouble was, there was nothing in the letter that he hadn’t been told, and more than once. He tossed the diary onto the bedside table—he’d been more loyal to the words he’d never heard his wife speak than the ones he had. 

_Maybe that was why she never wanted you to read them._

Tom kept the letter in hand, reading it over again, trying to hear what it told him. 

Thomas Barrow wasn’t an agreeable person: he said it himself more than once in the letter. He didn’t have many friends at Downton, or anywhere else from what Tom could tell. Sybil had been one of them, in a way Tom finally felt the full truth of. 

_He must have loved her very much._

Tom didn’t resist how small the thought made him feel. Somehow, the smallness helped. 

For the first time since it had happened, there was something for Tom to _do._ Something he needed to do, with no complications beyond his own pride.

It was comforting...or it would be, until he actually had to face Thomas. 

* * *

He gave himself until the next day to decide on a plan before catching Thomas on the bedroom gallery. 

“Mr. Barrow?”

Thomas stopped in tracks, taking his time about turning around to face Tom. 

“Mr. Branson.” He wasn’t even pretending to look at him, his voice cool as ever. “What can I—”

“—I just wanted a word. If I could.” Thomas’s silence wasn’t reassuring, but Tom blundered on. 

“I was out of line, the other day.” He waited, but Thomas only stared at the space of carpet between them. “Sybil would want you to see her, to know her. I know she talked of it with you.”

“A little.” Thomas murmured the words, forcing Tom to take a step forward. He might have done it anyway—at the mention of Sybil, Thomas’s shoulders had fallen, along with whatever coldness and anger Tom had seen in him before. 

If he’d had any doubts, Tom was sure now—Thomas was grieving, as much as anyone else.

“It’s different, now,” Thomas continued, after a long pause and still in the same low voice.

Meaning now that Sybil was dead, Tom would want Thomas far away from her daughter. It would feel like a second death, especially with the baby being born at Downton. They’d all talked of it, even when most of the new maids hardly knew Sybil at all. They’d been happy for a baby, that was all. The thought of one, the idea of new life in the house, had sparked excitement for all of them.

How much more had Thomas hoped to be included in the celebration? And for good reason—if Sybil were living, she’d have called him up early. She’d have made a point of it, because she’d known how much it mattered to him. That was how it should have happened. 

None of it was fair, but Tom could do a better job of trying. For Sybil and for the part of Thomas that hadn’t done anything but wish the best for her. 

“I know.” The words were dense, but they made room for everything else: 

“You should come up and see her. I’d like for you to,” Tom continued, his breath catching at Thomas’s expression—he was shocked, and either unwilling or incapable of pretending not to be. 

“If you want me to, of course, I would—I could. I’d want to.” He closed his mouth too tightly, eyes wide, as if forcing himself to stop trying to find the right word for what he meant. There was no guile in it—Tom could hardly remember what it would look like in him, though he knew it must have existed, and would probably exist again. 

But not always. Not when it came to this. 

Tom could see how someone could get to be fond of him. 

“Would you?” Tom asked, feeling sure it’s what Sybil would have said. Thomas’s jaw slackened in response. “It’s a big house, and I’m...I want to do my best for her, but I can’t fill everything. Not here. But I don’t want her to be lonely. She’s done nothing to deserve it.” 

“Neither have you.” 

Now it was Tom’s turn to be shocked. Thomas wasn’t looking at him, but his gaze didn’t seem averted...it was as if he’d forgotten to look, as if he were intent on something stuck inside of him. 

Maybe he was also trying to guess what Sybil would have said, instead of his first thought.

Tom could supply the latter all on his own. 

“Haven’t I?” Thomas looked at him, then, and there was something of the old guardedness back in his eyes. But guardedness wasn’t the same as unkindness. “I keep thinking...we’d have been at home, at the very least, if it wasn’t for me. If nothing else, we’d have been at home.”

Thomas, who had never been to their home in Dublin and now never would, only shrugged. 

“You didn’t know.”

But he should have. He should have known from the very beginning that he had taken on something he wasn’t ready for, tied himself to a life that required more than feelings and pronouncements...his wife and his child had needed more from him, so much more. 

He’d wanted to be in love all on his own. Be a father all on his own. Like he always had been, _off somewhere else._ And it was selfish, except no one had told him that part. 

“I shouldn’t have been so careless.” He danced around the word—Thomas could think it for himself well enough. “I can’t think why it felt so important, now. And I wonder...”

The silence made it even harder to say. 

“The thing is…” Tom sighed. “I don’t think she wanted...that is, I don’t think she’d have been so keen to get married, if it wasn’t for me asking her to.”

Thomas looked down so sharply at his feet that Tom felt his stomach fall in tandem. 

“You know it’s true, then?”

“I don’t... _know_ anything. We can’t.”

Even though the odds were that Sybil might have lived another fifty years if it wasn’t for him...

“Feeling it’s enough.”

It was Thomas’s turn to break the silence, but he didn’t. They both settled in it, not exactly comfortable but not eager to clamber out, either. 

When Tom started towards the nursery, Thomas followed. 

Thomas didn’t talk much in the nursery, either, except to say that Sybil was “lovely.” 

“She is.” 

* * *

Tom lingered in the nursery doorway—he’d never heard Thomas say so much all at once, and he wasn’t eager to break the spell. 

“—more cheerful than you were this morning, aren’t you?” Thomas laughed, as if Sybbie had responded with anything beyond wide eyes. “Yes, I _did_ hear all that...but they got you all settled, now, haven’t they? And I suppose you've heard you’ve got a christening coming up, and you’ll be all dressed up and going out for the first time...that’ll be something, after being in here for so long, won’t it? I wish I could see it.” 

“Why can’t you?” 

He smiled at how quickly Thomas turned, but if Thomas found any humor in the situation, it was well hidden from Tom. 

“Mr. Branson.” Sybbie cooed from her bassinet, and Thomas stood aside as Tom approached. Her bright eyes shone up at him, and Tom caught one of her hands in his own, kissing it. “Nanny—” 

“—I know, I saw her on the stairs.” Tom tried another smile, but Thomas looked distracted—almost irritated. He wasn’t pleased about being caught out as sentimental, even soft (Tom never thought he’d use the word to describe Thomas, but there it was). 

“Why don’t you come, to the christening?” Tom tried a different salve. But: 

“Mr. Carson wouldn’t hear of it.” 

He wouldn’t like being at the christening anyway, Tom guessed. Not with all the rest of them there, when could see Sybbie anytime he wanted. And he did, much more than Tom had expected—he hadn’t thought of Thomas as someone who was fond of children, however fond he’d been of Sybil. 

Maybe Thomas hadn’t thought of himself that way, either...but he’d taken it to so _well_ that Tom wondered. He couldn’t ask it, but he wondered. 

Did he pretend to be someone else on purpose, and who was it for? 

“I like that you can talk to her. I wish I could. I wish I knew what to say, I mean.”   
  
Finally, he received a smile in return of his own.

“Well, you don’t have to _impress_ her.” The glint in Thomas’s eye was a welcome surprise, a return to something Tom had forgotten people used to feel. 

“You make it seem easy.”

“Not to impress?” 

Tom laughed, and it seemed to please Thomas more than anything else had so far. 

“No, I mean...you make it seem easy, the way you talk to her.” He was getting used to Thomas not always saying anything in return. Some words took their time reaching him. 

It gave Tom the space to think of something else he’d wanted to tell him, before everyone else heard. 

“Lady Grantham’s been calling her Sybbie, instead of Sybil. The same but different, she says.” This time, Tom didn’t wait for the words to reach Thomas before asking, “What do you think of it?”

They both stared down at her. 

“Sybbie,” Thomas murmured. _“Miss_ Sybbie, I should say…well, I think she likes it.” He beamed down at her. “ _Don’t_ you?”

She was certainly pleased—happier than Tom remembered her being before. She was blooming, that was the only word for it. Coming awake and coming alive and bringing all that joy along with her. 

“Then Sybbie it is.” 

* * *

“Could you not do something else?” Tom asked, despite having no suggestions of his own. 

“It seems not.”

Tom found it impossible to believe—Lord Grantham had stalled for ages on the Bates situation, only to decide on it all just before the cricket match? 

Thomas wouldn’t play, he claimed. He couldn’t. He’d be gone. 

Tom didn’t like the sound of the word, and he liked Thomas’s resignation when saying it even less. 

But it wasn’t his choice, and Tom wasn’t convinced _he’d_ stay much longer himself...he was coming out of the worst of his grief, and Downton felt smaller than it had in weeks. Smaller and more complicated, tightly wound and without any need of him. 

They insisted otherwise, but they didn’t feel it as he did—their cogs were necessary, and they saw it all differently. But there would be no fitting him in, not permanently. It would wear them all down, him worst of all.

Maybe it was for the best that Thomas go. They were alike in that way. 

He’d never seemed to recover from Sybil’s death, and Tom wondered whether he’d been right to ever come back after the war in the first place. Downton had never exactly agreed with him. 

“Have you found a new place yet?”

“I might have.” 

“Nearby, or—?”

“No, I don’t think so.” There was something wrong in it, something concealed. “I might travel. I’ve wanted to anyway. I have a cousin in Bombay.”

“A cousin?”

“Yes. You didn’t take _quite_ all of them, Mr. Branson.” 

His poor attempt at a smile made it clearer than ever that there was a part of the story Tom wasn’t going to hear. 

He didn’t press him for it. They were friendly, but not friends—at least, not the kind of friend Tom guessed he’d need to be for Thomas to tell him anything without a fight. 

If they were both leaving, a fight was the last thing Tom wanted. 

“It sounds like quite an adventure.”

“Maybe.” Thomas somehow managed to shrug all the hope off of the word. 

Though Tom knew he couldn’t ask, he wished he could. 

* * *

“I beg your pardon?” 

Jimmy and Alfred both jumped to attention at Matthew’s intrusion into their conversation. It somehow looked more ridiculous with them out of livery. 

“—Mr. Crawley—”

“—sir—”

“—it was only a joke.” Jimmy wilted under Matthew’s stare. “Sir.” 

“One I don’t think bears repeating.” Matthew looked between them, and Tom could see the heat of his anger cooling at the edges. It wasn’t in his nature to be short with the staff. 

“Go and have some lemonade, enjoy the sun…we don’t get enough of it around here.” 

They didn’t need telling twice.

“What’s that all about?” Tom had only caught a hint of the pair’s murmuring, in the brief instant between Matthew stopping him mid-sentence and moving to censure them. But Alfred and Jimmy were quarrelers—both young and stubborn and a little more vain than was good for them. 

“It’ll be that business with Barrow,” Matthew said, squinting in the sun even under his cap. “This is what comes of keeping so many footmen around...they stir each other up.” 

Tom frowned. 

“What do they care if he’s leaving?”

Matthew shot him a strange look, one Tom was used to from Lord Grantham and the Dowager...even Mary from time to time. That look that reminded him of his separateness, that he stood ready to be accused of something. 

But Matthew wasn’t like that, usually, and Tom couldn’t think what he’d said to make a difference.

“Well, he isn’t leaving, not anymore. Not unless he wants to.” Matthew sighed. “They want him as under butler.” 

“Under butler?”

“Which is perfectly ridiculous in 1920, but I can’t say I’m sorry, not when they tried running the poor chap out.” 

Tom almost stopped in his tracks, but he thought better of it, letting the words sink in before making a decision on what they meant. 

Whatever they meant, he was pretty sure they put him a good deal closer to understanding why Thomas had suddenly decided on traveling to Bombay...

“God, did they really?” 

Matthew really did stop.

“Didn’t you know anything about it?” Tom shook his head, and Matthew’s brow furrowed. “I thought he might have—never mind, I shouldn’t have told you...anyway, they’ve settled it now.”

“It doesn’t sound like it.” If Alfred and Jimmy could be so nasty at a cricket match, what might they get up to downstairs, with no Mr. Crawley to reprimand them? 

“Well, it’s been contained, how’s that?” Matthew grinned, and whatever strangeness had come between them vanished.

Thomas wasn’t far off, talking to Mrs. Hughes under one of the tents, his cap off and his spirits looking much brighter than they’d been in the past few weeks. 

He’d be staying, Tom realized. Whether they all wanted him to or not.

There was something brave in it, something Tom envied, something he wanted for himself—

“Barrow!” Matthew called out as Thomas emerged. “That was well done.”

Tom guessed Matthew was making a point in seeking Thomas out, in shaking his hand—he’d done the same for Tom, many times. It worked because he meant it, and Tom watched it work on Thomas.

“Thank you, sir.” Matthew didn’t encourage overawe—something sturdier brought out Thomas’s smile, an ease as he walked on next to them. Tom caught his eye and nodded, and there was no room for wondering whether it was the right thing to do or not. 

It was—very clearly—enough for them to go on talking as if they’d always planned to, the three of them...even though two hadn’t planned on playing until the very last moment. 

Two had planned on leaving Downton entirely. 

“I think we’re far enough ahead to have a real chance, thanks to you,” Matthew said. 

“I hope so, sir.” Thomas was showing off a little, in his voice, in his stride. “The village talked themselves up, but I don’t know that they’ve made the same showing as last year.” 

“No, I don’t think so either, I was just telling Lord Grantham…” 

They kept on talking, as if it were an everyday thing.

And Tom wondered—if they could all fit like this on the unlikeliest of days, what might happen if he stayed a little longer? 

“I saw Miss Sybbie’s out today,” Thomas said, as Matthew pulled away to talk to Mary. “It’ll be an adventure for her.”

“It’s an adventure for all of us,” Tom laughed. “I’ve never played before.” 

“That’s what I’ve heard.”

It took Tom a second to hear the humor in it, the fondness. 

There was more friction when it was just them, without Matthew—the stopping and starting and guessing. But there was nothing dangerous, there; that was what Tom was beginning to understand. The more he understood it, the more he liked the friction. There was trust in it. 

Maybe it could be like that with the rest of them, too, if he stayed. 

  
  
  



	5. Chapter 5

A year slipped by, and Tom felt as if he hadn’t moved at all. 

For a long time, he hadn’t noticed. It was enough not to be falling, to have solid ground under his feet. And everything seemed so untouched at Downton, so routine, that Tom took it for granted. He’d forgotten to look underneath the surface, where things really moved and shifted. 

The fact was, it had been over a year since Sybil died, and people were getting on with life. Mary was about to have a baby of her own, which meant Matthew was weeks away from fatherhood. Edith had found her stride working at a newspaper—she even seemed to be making a match for herself with the editor. 

Any lead Tom once had, as a man with a small child, a man with responsibilities that mattered more than his passions, was quickly evaporating, and he found himself facing the reality that he would soon be _behind_ everyone else. In status and in happiness, in purpose and potential, they were pulling ahead. 

He was pleased for them. It still felt strange to say, but he was. He just wished his envy didn’t stall his goodwill before it had quite turned to happiness. 

Matthew was happy enough for both of them, happy enough for the whole house. He was going to be a father, and Tom knew well enough what that meant. 

He’d always been an attentive uncle, but lately Matthew had been spending even more time with Sybbie, as a kind of rehearsal for when his own child showed up. 

“It was only me, Mother, and Father growing up, so I don’t know the first thing about children—much less babies.”

“Except that you were one, once,” Tom smiled. Matthew made it easier for Tom to forgive his own place in life. He took things seriously, but he’d been through too much to be catastrophic about what he called ‘every day doubts.’

He’d do well as a father—already, he seemed to have a clarity of mind about it all, speaking philosophically as he danced Sybbie’s stuffed rabbit in front of her. 

“When I think about it…” he stopped, waiting for Sybbie’s giggling to subside as she snatched the rabbit away from him. “You spend months trying to plan, but I wonder: how could anyone be the same person, after it happens?”

“You can’t,” Tom said, even though it seemed impossible to him that Matthew would need to change very much. 

It was Sybbie’s turn to dance the rabbit about, but she cried out in protest when Matthew made a reach for it (she was, thankfully, easily placated by his quick apology and kiss on the cheek).

“She’s not going to like the baby taking so much attention…” Matthew laughed. _“Are_ you?”

Sybbie dropped her rabbit onto the floor in response. Tom hastened to pick it up. 

“It’ll be good for her,” he said, handing the rabbit to Matthew, who handed it to Sybbie. “Sybil had said—”

But admitting that Sybil hadn’t wanted their child to be lonely proved impossible to speak aloud. 

“—what did Sybil say?” Matthew prompted, not too much weight on the words, and as usual Tom found himself saying both more and less than he meant: 

“Back in Ireland, we’d lived next to another young couple—the Gallaghers—and they’d just had their first son. Billy. She’d meant to bring them up together.”

Even had she lived, that would never have happened, thanks to him. But there might have been other families, with other children. Other places they could have gone, together. 

He felt guilty for thinking it when Matthew, still bouncing his daughter in his arms, said:

“It sounds like a fine plan.” Not like posh people usually said it, as a dismissal, but as if he’d thought it through and decided. 

He flashed Tom a smile. “But this one isn’t bad, either.” 

“Sometimes I wonder...she never would have expected me to stay here, not for this long.”

“None of us would have: least of all you,” Matthew laughed. “I think it’s a good thing, at least for now. Better than that _garage_ you were off to.”

Even Matthew’s good nature couldn’t stop the words from sounding alien to Tom...it wasn’t that they weren’t true—or true in part. But he didn’t _want_ them to be true, still didn’t quite understand how it was that they _could_ be true. 

“It’s better for Sybbie, at least.” Whether Tom liked it or not, it was enough to believe that. 

“But not for you?”

Tom looked around the day nursery, like it might help him find a way to say what he meant without appearing ungrateful. 

“I know it isn’t as grand as helping manage an estate...it isn’t grand at all, really...but at least I believe in cars.”

Perhaps the words hadn’t landed as he’d meant them to, or perhaps there were aristocratic nerves that even Matthew Crawley couldn’t pretend he hadn’t acquired, but Matthew bristled when Tom had finished. 

“And you don’t believe in us?”

“Is that really fair?” 

“No, of course it isn’t,” Matthew said, quickly and to his credit. “And God knows I’ve had my share of objections...but you see, what I’ve realized is that if you want to fight your battles, you have to stick around to fight them.”

“I’m not sure I want to fight—not like I used to.” Tom sighed. “So where does that leave me?” 

Sybbie cooed as Matthew chose his words:

“A man doing a fine job for his daughter, and a fine job for his family.” 

But Tom wondered all the same. Downton was better for Sybbie than a garage, better even than the lonely agent’s cottage he’d once contemplated moving into. But family being all around meant something different at Downton than it had when he’d been a boy. 

Downton, with its maids and nannies and footmen, made family life as he knew it unnecessary. Wealth turned aunts and uncles and grandparents into drawing room figures, occasional intruders into the nursery. It was nothing like his family, where everyone was expected to be another kind of parent, a second and third and fourth set of hands and eyes and hearts. 

They all loved her, of course, but they didn’t talk about love in the same terms as Tom—to hear them talk, Sybbie might already be in training for the rest of her life.

 _She’s a little girl,_ Tom wanted to shout. _She doesn’t have to be anything._

But a sense of his own insignificance kept him quiet—what did he know about bringing up an earl’s granddaughter? What could he say to people like them that might keep his daughter’s fortune and future away from their prying? 

Was it even right for him to try? 

He watched them leave for Duneagle with a heavier heart than he’d expected, and he walked back into Downton feeling that, somehow, he deserved it. 

* * *

“Mr. Branson?” 

Still breathless after the tug-of-war game, Tom turned to face Thomas, who was smiling broadly, his cheeks flushed and his hair falling into his eyes. 

Sports suited him; Tom guessed they suited many people, whether they were good at them or not. They took away difference, somehow. As the afternoon wore on, Tom had forgotten to be nervous, forgotten to check whether he was fitting in with the downstairs staff. Forgotten to compare it to his new life upstairs. 

None of it mattered: he could sense that clearly through the pleasant thud of his heartbeat, or in the warmth of his skin. He came to the fair as himself—not as an agent, not as a chauffeur, not as anything but one more bloke tossing rings and drinking more than was good for him. 

There was space for him, and Tom enjoyed it more than he’d enjoyed anything in months. 

He stared at Thomas expectantly, his chest rising and falling, feeling as if Thomas might say anything and that Tom would agree with it wholeheartedly. 

“We’re going to try our hand at the games, if you—”

“—oh, of course he will!” Edna exclaimed—she was standing closer to Tom than he’d realized. Closer than he really wanted, but he couldn’t see a way around that. _“Won’t_ you?” 

Thomas grimaced at Edna’s interruption, looking away as he put his coat back on. Tom’s self-consciousness slipped back over his own shoulders along with it. 

“Aren’t they all fixed?” Tom said, unsure. 

Edna opened her mouth—Tom could see her deciding what to ask for instead—but Thomas was sharper: 

“They _can’t_ be, if I’ve won them.”

He placed his hat back on his head, leaving Tom and the rest to follow. 

Thomas hadn’t lied—he was unusually suited to fair games, and (not so unusually) fond of the attention it got him. Alfred and Jimmy kept their distance, but the others provided plenty of audience to show off for. Even Edna, who hung off of Tom’s arm in a way Tom knew he’d be sorry for sooner or later, lingered at each stall to watch him. 

“He’s wonderful, isn’t he?”

She glanced up at Tom as she said it, and though she’d done nothing but smile and say the truth, Tom felt a heat run up his spine as if he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t.

“I don’t know how he manages it,” he said, tossing in a chuckle that only served to make his discomfort more obvious. 

It didn’t help that Thomas chose that moment to win once again, picking up a small, plaster doll for his efforts. 

“What’ll you do with that?” Ivy asked. 

Thomas pocketed it with a smirk. “What’s it to you?” 

He caught Tom’s eye as he turned back towards the food stalls, and Tom guessed Sybbie would soon have another trinket in the nursery, tucked well out of reach. Objects she could do nothing but point at, toys put onto shelves for the look of the thing rather than for Sybbie’s amusement.

This would be different, somehow. Thomas had wanted him to know that it would be different, that was why he’d sm—

“What do all men do with their prizes?” Edna said. “They show them off to their sweethearts.”

Tom felt his stomach in his throat before he realized Edna couldn’t have the faintest idea what he was thinking about. 

“But Mr. Barrow hasn’t _got_ a sweetheart,” Ivy said. 

“Just because you’ve never met her,” Edna teased. “I’ll bet he’s got his eyes on a girl in York. That’s Mr. Barrow’s way, he’d never keep a girl around for us all to know about. She won’t be in service, either—a shop girl, maybe.” 

Daisy frowned. “He’d never go all the way to York for a girl who works in a _shop.”_

Edna laughed. “What do you think, Mr. Branson?”

Tom couldn’t understand what she meant, asking him.

“About what, exactly?” he stalled. 

“I think Mr. Barrow’s got a girl in York somewhere, but Daisy says he’s got his sights set higher.” 

Daisy protested that she didn’t care, and Tom felt like doing much the same (though he wondered if Daisy’s ears had started ringing like his). 

“I don’t know anything about it,” he said. 

“Don’t you?” Edna set her eyes on him, and he held his breath.

It couldn’t mean what he feared it did (nothing had happened—and nothing _would,_ seeing as he’d never really thought about it seriously, and even if he _had_ there was no reason to _do_ anything about it...there wasn’t anything very dreadful about _thinking_ of things from time to time, if it didn’t—)

_—oh, shut up._

He was sure his panic read on his face, but Edna was nothing if not single minded:

“Only, no one set their sights higher than you, did they? With Lady Sybil, I mean.” 

She always said Sybil’s name in such a peculiar, hushed tone, as if frightened of summoning a ghost—except Tom doubted Edna Braithwaite had ever been very frightened of anything in her life. 

“That wasn’t how we looked at it,” he said, feeling as if he were forever doomed to say the same things over and over again. “We were equals in all the ways that mattered.” 

Edna treated the words like they were brand new. 

“I think that’s _lovely,”_ she breathed, tightening her grip on his arm. “You say such lovely things. Do you want to sit down? It’s so hot.”

“Is it?” he asked faintly, as if he hadn’t just been thinking the same thing himself. He glanced around—Daisy and Ivy had wandered off, and Thomas was nowhere to be found. Just Edna, still clinging to him. 

He shouldn’t have come. He’d known this would happen, of course he had to have known...she’d been obvious enough. Now he didn’t know how to stop it. 

She wasn’t bad company, really, it wasn’t that...and Tom didn’t mind her being a maid. Oh, it would cause trouble—more than Tom really wanted—but for the right person…

It wouldn’t be her. Tom didn’t know how he could tell something so quickly, but he could. It would never be Edna, no matter how quick she was to laugh in his presence, how close she sidled up next to him.

He should just tell her, he thought. It wasn’t all too difficult, he’d done it before. More than once, even. But there was something about her bearing, something that signaled he wouldn’t be believed, and the thought of forcing his way into an agreement kept him silent. 

Perhaps he would have tried it anyway, had they not all been called over in a panic to attend to Thomas. Tom nearly forgot he’d been to the fair at all, watching him struggling to take in air under bruised ribs as blood fell into his eyes. All his vigor from earlier in the day, turned to nothing. 

There was no sense in it. 

Jimmy trailed at the back of the group approaching the wagonette. He was still stumbling slightly. Lucky him, finding Thomas, when _he’d_ been the one showing off his winnings...Tom didn’t like it. 

“What happened?” he asked, stopping Jimmy with a hand while Alfred and Dr. Clarkson helped Thomas into the wagonette. 

Jimmy blinked. The toe of his left shoe was digging into the dusty path.

“It’s suppose it’s like Mr. Barrow said,” he murmured unconvincingly. 

“You suppose?” Tom could feel Edna’s eyes on his back—she was waiting for him. He knew better than to press the matter in front of her, but he couldn’t stop himself, somehow. 

For the first time in a long while, he was angry with someone who wasn’t himself. 

“Well, I—” Jimmy cleared his throat. He was never very opaque, and the drunkenness didn’t help. 

“Maybe it’s not _exactly_ like Mr. Barrow said, then,” Tom said in a low voice.

Jimmy didn’t answer, and the rest of them had piled into the wagonette.

“We should go,” Tom grumbled. Jimmy didn’t need telling twice, and neither did Edna. 

They weren’t permitted to go ahead until Thomas had been reassured that everyone was present and accounted for. 

“Everyone’s here, Mr. Barrow. We’re going back to the house,” Mrs. Hughes said kindly, but Thomas didn’t seem to be listening. 

“I don’t see Anna,” he said, too loudly, a panicked note in his voice that made Tom’s blood run cold, though he couldn’t place it at first. 

Then he caught Mrs. Crawley glancing knowingly at Dr. Clarkson and felt his stomach turn. 

Thomas sounded like Sybil the night she died, well before anyone had bothered to tell him something might be wrong.

“Anna’s with the family in Scotland, remember?” Mrs. Hughes seemed determined not to look at anyone aside from Thomas—her mouth was set in such a thin, straight line that a turn of the head might break it. 

“‘Course I do,” Thomas said, though after a conspicuous pause. “I was thinking of Ivy.” 

“I’m right here, Mr. Barrow,” Ivy said quickly, and Thomas sniped that of course he’d seen her _now,_ he’d only _asked a question..._

But that was the same, too. Sybil had been determined to convince Tom that she wasn’t really _confused,_ that the distress and distraction were only symptoms of what they already knew to be true: she was going to have a baby and having a miserable time because of it. And the only way to get over _that_ was to get through it...he remembered her saying it, more than once, only to follow it up with something terrifyingly muddled. 

Tom supposed that up until the very end, she’d been trying to convince herself more than anyone else. 

“In any case, we’re all accounted for,” Mrs. Hughes said pointedly. “Now, you try and have a rest on the way back…”

It didn’t do any good, from what Tom could tell. If anything, it was harder getting Thomas out of the wagonette than it had been getting him in. Then they had the stairs to manage—too many on a good day, and tortuous when it came to something like this. Thomas complained each time Tom tried slowing down in response to his faltering.

“I think we’ve just got to get him up there, Mr. Branson, whatever else,” Alfred reasoned, and though it didn’t make much sense to Tom, he did his best to accept the wisdom. 

There were things Alfred had learned that he hadn’t. 

He certainly wasn’t sorry to reach the attics and set Thomas onto his bed, leaving Mrs. Hughes and Dr. Clarkson to it. Mrs. Crawley lingered in the doorway, ready for whenever she might decide to be needed. 

“It’s more than scrapes and bruises, isn’t it?” Tom said, unwilling to speak around his fears. 

“We’ll know more once he’s settled in his own bed and less agitated,” Mrs. Crawley said, in an even voice that might have comforted Tom once. 

“Because it might be—” 

Tom didn’t know how to say it, what he even _meant_ except ‘the worst.’ 

She stared at him knowingly. 

“Time will tell us more than we can guess at now,” she reassured him, though her smile helped more than the words. 

Tom would have stayed and helped, if anyone had asked, but of course they didn’t. He was Mr. Branson again, like the fair had never happened, like none of them had felt anything change at all. Maybe it had only changed in his imagination.

His and Edna Braithwaite’s. And if it had stung to feel neglected, her kiss sunk in like a wound—for just a moment, it seemed as if it were meant to have happened, as if something pliant inside of him had asked for it. He was too shocked to feel anything but grateful that it didn’t hurt.

The pain came in its own time, not long after she’d slipped out of his room. It came when he saw Sybil’s picture, when he thought of Edna hoping for something that would never be real between the two of them. 

And it came when he thought of Thomas, who shouldn’t have been on his own that evening. What might have happened if Tom had followed his instincts and kept with him instead? If he’d told Edna the truth and done what he liked? What had he been so afraid of?

The answer kept him awake half the night, but by the time morning came he almost couldn’t remember it. 

* * *

Tom was too quiet opening the door: Thomas didn’t look up from his paper straight away, only noticing his presence when one of the floorboards creaked under Tom’s feet. Thomas didn’t say anything, his eyes wide while taking in Tom and Sybbie’s presence in his room. 

“Good morning,” Tom said. 

“Good morning,” he replied, slowly. “Mr. Branson. And—”

Sybbie exclaimed, as if she would prefer to announce herself. They both laughed. 

“That’s Mr. Barrow, isn’t it?” Tom said, grabbing hold of her outstretched hand. She agreed in her own manner of speaking. 

Thomas looked better than he had the night before, much better. Not the bruises and cuts, so much, those would take time, but he was alert in a way he hadn’t been the evening before. More himself. 

And he looked pleased to see them. 

“She was asking for you.” Tom walked to the side of Thomas’s bed. 

“I doubt that…” Thomas said, despite the fact that Sybbie started leaning out of Tom’s arms the moment Thomas came within reach. “I’ll spook her, looking like this.” 

But he set his paper down all the same, taking Sybbie into his arms. 

“Hello…” he murmured, more ginger than usual. He really was afraid of troubling her, but if Sybbie took more than a passing notice of his appearance, it didn’t show. Soon they were talking as they always had. 

“I heard you had some adventures with Mr. Carson yesterday, while we were away...Yes, I know, we didn’t leave you much choice…” 

Tom couldn’t help but smile at that, or at what Thomas said next:

“I had a present for you to make up for it, but it’s wandered off, and I’m very disappointed…” Sybbie mumbled something through the hand she’d stuck in her mouth. “Oh, well that’s very kind of you…”

With Thomas, more than anyone else, Tom felt as if Sybbie were permitted to be a child in the way Tom had always planned. Without expectations and fuss, without the fear that she was being prepared for a life someone else had planned for her. 

She was a small person in his eyes, nothing more or less, and no one could convince Tom that Sybbie didn’t already notice the difference. She’d call to Thomas from across the room, and never was there less doubt about what her babbling meant. 

She loved him, and no matter how the others tried to compare it to Carson or the old cook or any other servant who’d passed through the house with a child hanging off their arm, Tom felt that it must be different, somehow. That it lay somewhere deeper than convenience. 

And if it did, Tom knew more was expected from _him_ as well. 

“You had us worried,” he said, the words not quite what he meant and earning him a puzzled look from Thomas. 

“Mr. Carson’s worried about _this,_ I know that.” Thomas indicated his face, but there was more pain than amusement behind his smile, and Tom remembered how angry he’d been the day before (and who he’d been angry with). 

“Was it Jimmy who put them up to—”

“—no,” Thomas interrupted, looking into his lap. “No, it wasn’t that.”

But he didn’t seem surprised that Tom had asked, nor did he offer an alternate explanation. 

“Because he always acts like he wants trouble with you,” Tom prompted. Thomas might not like his urging, but he was tired of pretending that he didn’t know Thomas very well when he _did._

He had for a long time. 

“Maybe I caused the trouble.” Thomas didn’t look at him, but Tom still got the sense that he was fishing for something. 

He wasn’t sure what, so he gave him the truth: 

“I don’t know if I believe that.”

Thomas looked momentarily stunned at the answer, though Tom suspected it was what he’d hoped to hear—he could tell it by the way Thomas set the words to one side before really enjoying them. 

“You don’t know anything about it,” he said, not quite in an ill-humor but bordering on what the others would call impertinence. 

Truthfully, Tom knew more than either of them would admit, but he thought had gotten hold of what Thomas was fishing for: 

“I could,” he offered. “If you want—”

Mrs. Hughes interrupted, carrying a tray. Tom stood straight. 

“Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Branson…” she said. “I didn’t know you were up here.”

“I was just bringing Sybbie up,” he said, answering a question no one had asked and realizing it too late. “So she wouldn’t worry. We’ll get out of your way.”

Mrs. Hughes didn’t argue, and Tom felt even more foolish. He was flustered reaching for Sybbie, and she noticed, twisting discontentedly in Thomas’s arms, a whine starting in her voice. 

“She doesn’t like being hurried along…” Thomas cooed, bouncing her in supplication. He didn’t notice anything amiss, and why would he? What had happened with Edna had nothing to do with Thomas, nothing at all, except now Tom felt like a naughty child waiting to be caught at something again. 

_Caught at what?_ He grumbled to himself, before grabbing hold of Sybbie. 

“Here, let me, darling.”

Thomas’s eyes locked with his for a second too long, and Tom stopped breathing. 

He’d been talking to Sybbie, that was all. 

He pried her out of Thomas’s arms, and she wailed even as she buried her face in Tom’s shoulder. 

“Let’s get you back to the nursery,” he murmured, kissing the top of her head. 

(Not that Thomas had suggested Tom hadn’t been talking to Sybbie...he’d only looked at the person speaking, that was natural, that was what people did…)

“Say goodbye,” he told Sybbie, but his coaxing only brought out a furious flop of her hand. 

“Good-bye, Miss Sybbie,” Thomas said anyway. “Mr. Branson.”

There was another pause when they looked at each other. 

“It was kind of you to bring her,” Mrs. Hughes offered. Tom looked at Thomas, who stared resolutely at the tray Mrs. Hughes had brought in, his fingers crossed in his lap. 

“Well...it seemed like a fine idea earlier, anyway,” Tom sighed. “Come along, darling…” 

But repeating the word didn’t stop Tom from feeling like he’d caught himself out. 


End file.
